The Mocking Program

by Alan Dean Foster

  Cardenas grinned. "Of course I do." And he was not lying.

  When Pangborn rose, the Inspector stood with him. The two senior officers walked to the door of the Captain's office. "After thirty years on the force there are two things I've learned." Pangborn fingered his artificial ear, the one whose prosthetic did not properly match the original cartilage. "Don't try to talk sense to someone who's spizzing on sparkle, and never play poker with an intuit." He rested a hand on the Inspector's shoulder. "Do me a favor, will you? Wind this up as fast as you can and try not to get vaped in the process."

  Cardenas advanced far enough for the door to respond to his presence, identify him, and open. "I'll try. Dying always complicates an investigation."

  "Not to mention the added paperwork." Pangborn dismissed him with a wave of mock annoyance. "I'll send Gonzalez to Sanjuana. He can sneak his new bride along. Put them up at the Coronado for a few days, and he'll raise an icon to me." His tone grew more somber. "Watch yourself, Angel. I'm not concerned about the usual rent-a-cutioner. But my read on this Mockerkin is—cautionary."

  "Same here. Thanks, Shaun."

  Cardenas felt no sense of triumph as he departed the division Captain's office. Only quiet satisfaction that he was going to be allowed to continue with the assignment he had set for himself. He felt he owed it to Hyaki. He felt he needed it for himself. And for some reason as yet undetermined, he felt he owed it to someone he had yet to meet.

  A twelve-year-old girl named Katla Mockerkin.

  The more he learned about The Mock, the less he liked the man. What available information there was had to be scrounged from the depths of the central Namerican macrolice box. There was next to nothing in the popular media. Clearly, Cleator Mockerkin was one of those insidiously intelligent antisocs who neither needed nor wanted his picture flashed on the evening cast, prizing anonymity alongside power.

  And power he had. Over the course of the next couple of days, Cardenas tied fiscal links to The Mock that crossed half a hundred boxlines girdling the globe. In addition to dealing in illegal weaponry on an impressive scale, Mockerkin drew revenue from trade in banned designer pharmaceuticals, siphoned crunch, endangered species (foodstuffs as well as the illegal pet business), and prohibited wafers and mollys. This income was supplemented with money from more mundane activities like extortion and kidnapping. None of it was kosh, all of it was stylishly laundered, and there was enough of it floating around to tempt even a knowledgeable subordinate who should have known better like the late Wayne Brummel.

  A meticulously diversified feleon was The Mock. A real verdad nasty-ass chingaroon. If his disciples caught up with the fleeing Surtsey and Katla before the authorities did, Cardenas knew the upshot would not be acrimonious debate followed by a succession of mutually agreed-upon visits to a marriage counselor. About the daughter he could not surmise, but he seriously doubted that Surtsey Mockerkin was getting much sleep these days.

  Following long hours spent staring at info, he relaxed by striding the streets of the Strip at night, his dark eyes flicking from side to side and taking everything in as he walked off the energy that built up during the day. He paid little attention to the gaudy displays, the glittering municipal art works, or the persistent adverts. People were what interested him; the bustling inhabitants of the Strip in all their manifold musky ethnicity, a potpourri of colors, sizes, and shapes. In this, the commercial center of the western hemisphere, a casual listener could snak yakk of several dozen languages and dialects, from Azeri to Zulu, in addition to the predominating Spanish and English. Underlying it all, like a set of conversational box springs, was the provincial patois of the Strip—the jumpy, jerky hybrid argot known as Spang, for English-Spanish slang.

  Cardenas could volubate with the best of them. His fluency was a frequent surprise to the ninlocos and algaeaters he often had to deal with. What he could not inflect, he inferred—one of the benefits of being an intuit.

  Why hadn't he taken Pangborn up on his offer? He was as fond of Sanjuana's beaches as the next indigene. The Captain had been perfectly correct that the business of the puzzling Anderson-Brummel-Mockerkin axis could be dealt with by junior inspectors. Was Cardenas, after all, the secret masochist that some of his younger colleagues suspected? It wasn't as if he was angling for a promotion. In the last five years he'd turned down half a dozen higher-paying (and far less risky) admin posts.

  Seguro sure, he loved the Strip, with its noise and flair and surprises and the constant, never-ending action that was missing from his own life. But that was not explanation enough. Nor was his lack of a stable home life, although his recent relationship with the Gen-Dyne designer Hypatia Spango had lasted longer than most. Maybe it was because he lavished the love he carried around like carefully guarded baggage on kids like Wormy G and Bac-a-ran and, most recently, Wild Whoh. They were his family. Where most federales gave out only citations, Angel Cardenas also dispensed hope. There were subgrubs and nins and orphanos out there he hadn't even met yet, and all of them doubtless deserving of salvation.

  It was not only possible, but highly probable, that Katla Mockerkin was one of them, and he knew full well that any junior inspectors assigned to the case were unlikely to dispense their actions in light of that distinct possibility. Cardenas did not have to intuit the girl to know that she was worth protecting. He needed only to know that she was a seemingly normal twelve-year-old who had the misfortune to find herself caught between a duplicitous if protective mother and a corrupt, intimidating father.

  Beyond The Mock's inner circle and the Namerican Federal Police, he did not expect anyone to be much interested in, far less know of, the circumstances surrounding Surtsey and Katla Mockerkin's frantic flight from the peaceful surrounds of Olmec inurb. So he was more than a little surprised when, finishing his dinner on the patio of the Tchere-cheri Restaurant down the street from his codo, he was approached by a tottering masque in human form from which issued the whispery phrase, "Follow me, si see, fedoco, if you'd still like to dock The Mock." The gaunt figure did not stop, but continued to lurch down the pedestrian street like some psychotic scarecrow fled in secret from its farm of birth.

  The fluid outlines of the morphmasque rippled with every step the camouflaged figure took. Hastily settling his bill, Cardenas followed in its wake. Without a clear view of the masque's owner, he could not even be certain if it was a man or woman who shambled along beneath the ever-shifting veil. When it turned down an alley lit only by the diffuse glow from the remaining phototropic paint that covered the surrounding walls, the Inspector hesitated. It was difficult enough to try and intuit the intentions of someone cloaked by a masque without the added burden of trying to do so in the dark.

  But whoever was stumbling along beneath the fabric facade knew of his interest in Cleator Mockerkin. As that interest was something less than common knowledge, Cardenas was quietly burning to learn how his unseen guide had become aware of it. Also, it had, or claimed to have, information. Trailing the figure deeper into the alley, the Inspector let one hand cradle the frac he always carried in his righthand pants pocket. It was capable of stunning a small mob; he did not doubt its ability to incapacitate one wandering masque, no matter how spizzed its owner might happen to be.

  Near the end of the passage, the figure turned. Its appearance was now that of a tall, handsome young man. The scene was so quiet you could hear the condensation drip from the arterial network of conduits that served the buildings' air-conditioning systems. No water actually reached the ground, of course. Within the Strip, casual evaporation of recyclable water resources was a crime punishable, if not by law, then by the severe opprobrium of one's neighbors.

  The morphmasque suddenly flared, and the image of a young man turned into that of a slender middle-aged woman. The Inspector's fingers tightened around the frac. But the display was a prelude to dialogue, not a threat. For a moment, Cardenas was afraid he had been lured sideways simply to view some adverts. If so, he had to admire the masquer'
s gall.

  No, that couldn't be right, he told himself. The unseen wanderer knew of his interest in The Mock.

  "You going to talk, compadre, or just flash me?"

  The owner of the masque shuddered slightly, though whether from the effects of sparkle, degeneration, or laughter, Cardenas could not intuit. Young man became middle-aged woman became teenage ninloco became white-robed saint as multiple identities morphed rapidly before the Inspector's eyes. Having watched morphmasquing in action before, he had only a cursory interest in the process of shell-shifting. "You want to dock The Mock. The Turtle heard."

  At least now it had a name, the Inspector reflected. "How do you know that?"

  Continuously reinventing themselves, lights and landscapes undulated across the masque; the inverse of camouflage. The unseen owner became a street light, a postbox, a charging station and an altar, and, perhaps most tellingly, a garbage bin. "When you turn tortuga, you learn how to listen. I hear things on the backStrip, I do." The quavering voice grew louder. "Things they say, 'That intuit who's straight, he wants to know about The Mock's woman.'" Cardenas tensed slightly. "Your rep precedes you, fedoco."

  The Inspector ignored the compliment. "What do you know about Surtsey and Katla Mockerkin? Are they all right? Are they still in the Strip?"

  The masque became a flickering bipedal pillar of crackling lights and spinning optos. "It's caramba time, fedoco. Tiempo tempo. Time for all turtles to find a hole to crawl into and be very still." The trembling intensified. That reaction Cardenas could interpret: this would-be informer was scared. Scared bad, right down to the bottom of his masque's swaddling skirt.

  "I won't involve you. What do you want?"

  "For the sequence? Nada, homber. But The Turtle has suffered too much tampo tiempo. Too much time in jail." The figure morphed into a quite detailed image of a narrow, barred cell. "Next time I'm in dock, maybe I call on my good compadre Cardenas the intuit, and they cut me a crease, you know so?" Again the serious shudder. "In Rehab they take away your shell!"

  Trying to envision what lay beneath the morphmasque, Cardenas realized he still could not tell if the speaker was male or female. "You can always find me through the NFP box. I never forget a friend." He moved a little closer until the masque, now presenting the likeness of a small horse standing on its hind legs, flailed warningly with its front feet and flared a nervous red. "What about The Mock's family?"

  "There's yakk on the backStrip." Beneath the masque, something shrugged. It might have been a shoulder. "You need to visit a certain infomaniac." The voice fell slightly. "You sabe Mocceca's Mall?"

  Cardenas nodded. "I know where it is."

  "In the back back past the bake rack. Talk to the Indian2. He'll know." Turning, the ungainly figure abruptly bolted from the alley.

  "Wait!" The Inspector hurried after him. "One more question!"

  He slowed when he reached the street. A few curious pedestrians glanced in his direction. Their stares did not linger. Cardenas was not in uniform. In the absence of NFP turquoise blue, he was not readily identifiable as an officer of the law. That meant he could be an officer of something else, so citizens did not stare. At night, even in well-traveled parts of the Strip, a lingering gaze was not a prudent accoutrement.

  Of The Turtle, there was no sign. It might already have crossed the street, or entered a nearby building. Or he/she could be standing a foot or two away from Cardenas. The morphmasque would allow its denizen to blend in indistinguishably with its surroundings. A morph was not as sophisticated as an al-Levi military chameleon suit, but in an urban environment, it was effective enough.

  He checked his ident. It was still early, although the time mattered only to him. Playplaces like Mocceca's stayed open 24/7, and no time off for good behavior. As he headed north, in the direction of the nearest public induction tube, he found himself pondering the identity of the individual who had been identified to him by The Turtle. Cardenas knew plenty of Indians. But an Indian "squared"? That was an ethnic description that was new to him. Did the designation refer to the indicated individual's shape, or his mind-set?

  Damn morphmasque, he muttered to himself as he lengthened his stride. You couldn't intuit through the damn thing, any more than you could see through a turtle's shell. Which, of course, was the intent of both kinds of animals.

  SIX

  MOCCECA'S MALL WAS BUT ONE OF TWO DOZEN interconnected commercial sites that occupied a peninsula jutting out into the shallow body of water that had been euphemistically named by its developers Lake Fox. That there had never been a lake in the sandy depression until its developers had contracted for it to be filled with recycled effluent did not trouble the owners. Such was the name-game of enthusiastic property mavens. The two artificial islands in the center of the lake had been given over to recreational ends, and were inhabited by robot foxes that energetically hunted robot mice. The real rats that had arrived to join them ignored their scentless mechanical counterparts as they patrolled the shore for tadpoles, frogs, fish, and the detritus of human fast food that eventually washed up on the islands' shores. It was an irony of contemporary life that the wrappers of hamburger and tostada, noodle and pizza, biodegraded faster than the scraps of food that adhered to them, for which the real rodents, as opposed to the automatonic ones, were ever grateful.

  Like its companion malls, Mocceca's was a garish, brassy architectural album of small shops designed to appeal to visitors and residents alike. Within the one- and two-story faux Mexican village and Indian pueblo buildings could be found quaint regional eateries, fast I food restaurants, clothing boutiques, stim dispensers, demo outlets for the major box distributors, and, if one knew how and where to look, less savory entertainments and goods that bordered on antisoc.

  A few casual inquiries were sufficient to guide Cardenas to the comercio of the proprietor known colloquially as Indian2. The reason for the unusual designation became clear as soon as the Inspector entered the souvenir shop and introduced himself to the owner. Behind the counter, Mashupo Mingas displayed pictures of his Hindu mother and Zuni father. He was not twice-Indian, boasting lineage from two tribes, but Indian squared, with parents from opposite sides of the world. As an ethnic background it was distinctive, but not exceptional. Not in these days of massive migrations of human beings from every corner of every continent. It was, however, a combination the Inspector had not previously encountered in person.

  Mingas remained cordial even after Cardenas revealed himself as a representative of the NFP. Slight but sinewy of build, he smiled readily as he pointed out the attractions of his comercio, which ranged from attractive canvases of southwestern scenes that glowed with the light of their quantum bead paint, to cheap, hoary traditional tourist take-homes like scorpions and tarantulas embedded in Lucite paperweights. As the taking of live desert arachnids was proscribed, the highly detailed creatures were sterile clones raised exclusively for the souvenir trade. There were also vits for sale, and map wafers, and an impressive range of regional foodstuffs, many boasting highly imaginative and often humorous packaging. A small porch out back was set with a pair of tables and chairs, where patrons could sit and sip drinks while gazing out at the distant islands and their robot foxes. A well-dressed Amerind couple was there now, their attention focused on the lake.

  As he chatted with his visitor, Mingas was working his way through a Pilly sandwich. The Strip delicacy was a Philly cheesesteak served with red and yellow chilies instead of the usual onions, and jalapeno cheese in place of Swiss. Grease stained the self-heating wrapping. A brown droplet clung stubbornly to the shopkeepers lower lip.

  "So what can I sell you, Inspector-sir? A nice picture of the Golfo?" Moving out from behind the counter, he indicated a row of imitation Zuni fetish necklaces. Instead of small animals strung on silver and carved from turquoise and jasper and other semiprecious stones, these were garlanded with glowing plastic reproductions. Each fingernail-sized creature boasted a tiny, glowing LED eye or two. "See," Mingas
pitched, "when you touch it, each fetish makes the cry of the particular animal being portrayed." He demonstrated by gently squeezing a miniature bear between thumb and finger. Through the necklace's integrated playback unit, it promptly emitted a terse, muted growl.

  "Very clever. I'll take this one." The Inspector's response brought a look of satisfaction to Mingas's face. Hypatia would get a kick out of it, Cardenas decided. Sure, it was touristy, but it was cleverly designed and reasonably well-made. Probably factured right here in the Strip, in one of the giant souvenir workshops that tended to congregate in the Palenque industrial subdivision.

  As Mingas ran the box containing the necklace through the gift wrapper, cocooning it in prismatic plastic, Cardenas amused himself by examining a rotating display wheel stocked with holos. "There's something else I'd like to buy."

  Eagerness suffused the shopkeeper's voice. "If I don't have it, I can get it in on twenty-four-hour notice, sir."

  Cardenas did not look away from the holos. "An acquaintance told me a busybody infomaniac like yourself might know something of the present whereabouts of a woman and her daughter named Surtsey and Katla Mockerkin."

  Mingas finished wrapping the necklace, handed it over. "Here you are, Inspector-sir. No charge." His tone had become stilted, his smile forced. "I am a most firm believer in supporting my local police."

  Now Cardenas did turn away from the holo rack. His eyes bored into those of the proprietor and his words grew clipped. "If you know anything about me, then you know that I'm in-to-it. That means I can tell when someone is holding back on me. I don't have time to back-and-forth with you. The two women are in real danger, and I have to find them before her ex-husband does. One person has already died. George Anderson, also known as Wayne Brummel. The man she was living with. That's one too many."